The National Bank of Australia (NAB) is throwing its weight behind voice recognition as a better, more secure customer identifier than fingerprinting, writes ZDNet.

The NAB has been exploring the use of voice recognition since 2009, having customers use it instead of a PIN for identification. About 140,000 customers use the voice recognition services.

The NAB prefers to use voice biometrics because it says voice recognition has about 120 security points. Fingerprints have about 40. The bank stores the voice recognition data itself and uses different strings of questions in order to thwart any attempts to get around the security measures.

Next month, the NAB is switching voice recognition systems, opting to switch from Smart Talk to Speech Security, a system derived from a partnership between Nuance, Telstra and Salmat Speech Solutions.